I swear!

November 5th, 2009

I swear I haven’t forgotten about this blog. My daily life is impeding my ability to blog I’ve probably said before, but I’m quite busy. I did want to briefly share something vaguely intellectual.

B and I made it up to Ottawa for the first time a week and a half ago (sightseeing, not so good, it was rainy and Parliament was closed to the public, but we did see this: 350 protest in Ottawa). I was going up for this: 1st Annual Global Health Research Learning Forum. I’ve been to conferences before (and I’ll be in Toronto for CBIE next week for work) but this was actually the first conference that I’ve been to specifically for my educational pursuits. Aside from learning about new assessment tools and ongoing research projects, it was so refreshing and so inspiring to be around people who were passionate about similar issues! Once I get through the backlog of work/class assignments, I can’t wait to get started on my protocol, research and thesis! God, I’m such a keener…

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Not so good at this, eh?

August 25th, 2009

I wrote this on Aug. 19, and I’ve been debating if I should post this or not… I would rather discuss health than politics but I think this is probably important. I will be turning off comments on this post, I dealt with political backlash enough during my Undergrad years (aka the Bush years) in Canada. Without further ado… Continue reading »

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Vacay in Montreal!

July 6th, 2009

So… almost 6 years ago I moved from the US to Canada to go to school. Because I have lived here for so long I hold great affection for Canada, ironically I don’t often spend Canada Day in the country. Canada Day falls on the 1st and Independence day is the 4th, so I often have a long weekend to go home and visit my friends and parents. This year my best friend and I went to Montreal We had quite the sightseeing and gastronomic experience

For a quick summary… we flew in on June 30 and got in just in time to drop off our bags (we stayed on Amherst Street, fairly close to UQAM) and to see Stevie Wonder perform at Jazz Fest. The rest of the week we saw all of the sights; Mont Royal and the neighborhood around it, Little Italy and Jean Talon Market, Old Montreal, Jean Drapeau Park, the Olympic Village, fireworks at Le Ronde and shopping on St. Catherine street. And the food… oh… the food… bagels, poutine, beavertails (its a dessert not part of an animal), creton, pizza, montreal smoked meat sandwiches… Yum! It was probably good that we were walking around so much!

I’m still working on editing/sorting my pictures, so they will come in a future post.

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Adventures in Driving

June 8th, 2009

Well, I’m back in St. C after going back to my hometown. My Mom’s birthday is coming up so I went home to visit. I had a lovely time there and also saw some very good friends (and a friend’s absolutely adorable 9 month old baby girl).

On the way back, to keep myself entertained, I started cataloging the things I had seen while driving.

A few of the more memorable things are:

approximately 60 miles of construction
1 angry turkey in a field
white tailed deer in a pen
roadkill
license plates from: Michigan, Ontario, Quebec, Illinois, Ohio, Texas, Georgia, New York and a terrible BMW driver from New Jersey
an empty GM plant
speeders pulled over by police (in one case, 3 within approximately 100m)
fields, trees, lakes and rivers
rain
2 sunsets
a couple vineyards

And as an aside, on this trip I also experienced the irony of John Mellencamp’s “Authority Song” playing while going through customs.

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Niagara Folk Arts Festival

May 23rd, 2009

This post is coming a bit after the fact but last weekend B and I went to two Open Houses of the Niagara Folk Arts Festival. We had the most excellent Ukrainian food at St. George’s Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

B and I had perogies, kolbassa, cabbage rolls and (in his case) sauerkraut.

Then we moved on to the Club the Netherlands open house. My mom was born in Friesland, so I knew I couldn’t miss this one I was also able to fulfill a lifelong dream I never knew that I had… I got to stand in a giant wooden shoe!

When we got there a polka band (called Tomato Soup) was playing.

And how could we leave without having croquetten and olie bollen? Yum

This is for you Mom:

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Clearwater Marine Aquarium

May 16th, 2009

I just got back from a short vacation to Florida last Sunday. B and I had the pleasure of going to the Clearwater Marine Aquarium. To anyone in or visiting the Clearwater area… I highly recommend the Eco Combo package! It was a great way to spend the day, both informative and fun!

The dolphin in the video below, Winter, lost her entire tail as well as two vertebrae a result of the serious injuries that she had sustained trapped in a crab trap at 3 months of age. She made a full recovery and is learning how to wear a prosthetic tail. She is also very chatty and in many of my videos you can hear her chirping in the background. For more information about Winter please visit her website.